Biriani in Bamboo, Novelty Indian Dish at Swaadhisht Restaurant, Serving Kerala Cusisine, 47 Chander Road, Singapore

Swaadisht restaurant entrance. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

Exterior entrance of Swaadisht restaurant, showing Angela's reflection.

Swaadisht is Hindi from Sanskrit for tasty or delicious.

Website

Their website said they use no artificial colourings or preservatives.

Entrance

The restaurant is in a street full of ground floor restaurants, but easy to find with the name and street number large and clear. The doorway was welcoming.

Decor

The decor appealed to me, lovely Indian ladies wearing traditional outfits, with ear-rings and nose rings and musical instruments. The clever and colourful touch was the cheerful, red artificial tulips placed in the upside down white wall lamp shades making them look like vases.

You order by capturing the code which is on the tabletop onto your phone. Tick the items you want.

Drinks 

Mango lassi, rose milk, fresh lime juice. Swaadhisht restaurant. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

Starter

We started with fried cauliflower. Different. Tasty. The restaurant name is apt.

Main Courses

The real humdinger was the main courses. A real piece of theatre, on a par with the top Michelin restaurants. 

First, the dramatic, different, chicken rice in bamboo. The 'rice in bamboo' was three dollars extra but worth it. First, the drama of seeing it pushed out of the bamboo in a big roll. 

It tasted good. One person said they preferred it to the usual white rice, being less greasy. Another person preferred other rice, but admitted that you should have it for one person in a group just for the dramatic experience. 

You can have this bamboo dish with chicken or other meats or fish.

I was so delighted by the novelty of this experience that I said to my friend Jaya, "I would love to visit this restaurant again." 

He asked when? I replied, tonight, and tomorrow.

We had the leftovers packed up, in small lidded plastic boxes. So we could enjoy the food again, later. 

We could try the biriani with goat meat, mutton or prawn.

Bamboo chicken biriani. Mango lassi. Swaadhist Restaurant. Singapore. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

Other diners had ordered thalis, rice with a mixture of small bowls. Listed on the menu as traditional set meals.  The thali set meals are chicken, vegetable, fish curry or fish fry (fried fish, I presume, maybe chopped up fish?).

A thali - a platter with bowls of food. Swaadhisht restaurant, Singapore. Photo by Angela Lansbury.

Filling food, appreciated by diners who like filling food. From my limited viewpoint, facing in, most of the other diners on arrival looked like they had already eaten.

Our rice was enough for two. We could also have had chicken or curd rice, ghee rice or jeera rice.

Desserts

I was not over impressed with the desserts.  As is the case worldwide nowadays, the restaurant seems to have a chef or chefs for main courses but desserts are bought in. We ordered kulfi.

Kulfi is frozen. The packet showed the kulfi with pieces up the outside. We had only one teeny red piece on the outside and none I noticed in the middle.

Kulfi dessert came in a packet. Photo by Angela Lansbury.

Kulfi contents and wrapper. Photo by Angela Lansbury.

The colour was brighter, but the nuts on the outside were missing. Desserts were good enough, although not the wow factor of the main course.

We tried all three of the desserts we were offered. In the cabinet they had on display two items. 

We ordered gulab jamun. It came up hot and soft. In England we used to have it cold, which gives a firmer texture. On the plus side, the gulub jamun had lots of lovely syrup.

Service

Willing rather than efficient.

Getting there and where next on the way home?

 Nearest MRT stations are Little India on the blue Downtown line. Or Farrer Park MRT. Exit E. (Little India's Exit C takes you past a lot of small shops.)

Glossary

appam - thin milk pancake. Wiki reveals Appam (also known as Aappam) is a type of thin pancake originating from South India. It is made with fermented rice batter and coconut milk.

kappa - tapioca

paneer - Persian word for cheese, the most common cheese on the Indian sub-continent, fresh with a short shelf life, so eat it fresh, non melting, white, often in dice-size cubes

parak (palak is spinach)

pakora - fritter, deep fried in chickpea batter. The contents could be potato, cauliflower, spincah or paneer (white cubed chees)

parotta (also spelled parota)  flaky, layered, flatbread

Useful Websites and Information

47 Chander Road

Singapore 219 5465

tel +65 9880 1680

https://www.swaadhisht.com/

https://www.rewardsnetwork.com/blog/indian-food-glossary-32-words-demystify-restaurant-menu/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parotta

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